now the north did send plenty of tanks to the 9 line but they camped, not taking dip and no tds covering allowed an easy win. Yet, I feel the north actually has the advantage taking the 9 line dip as they have a flat run to the dip and do not have to cross a water barrier, from south you cross the water and the climb is very steep, so it seems odd to me that the map so often plays as a southern spawn 9 line roflstomp.

so is this map balanced and just played badly, my feeling or does it need some tweaks?

It's a tricky one as you never know how many tanks the enemy will send south. Rushing into the dip can be a winning move or suizide when you become outnumbered as then there isn't really a way to get out alive.

That's why more often than not the north team stops before the dip next to the bridge, which allows the south team to farm them as they then have better positions (assuming they have some hulldown tanks) and can get support from TDs back at the western bridge.

From north spawn, when you see that you don't have much support going south it's usually more effective to just turn around and camp in base so you can get shots once the enemy crosses the ridge. But most people don't realise that.

I don't think Live Oaks is a bad map. The south is very important though. The team that gets under the bridge in the south with larger numbers usually wins the battle. If you get in that ditch alone, you usually die early.

If mediums and heavies camp at the TD hill, you will lose more likely. City isn't that important, because the base is very easy to defend if you fall back from the south.

So yeah, it is not a bad map, it's being played badly. There is a role for every tank class on this map. Lots of possibilities for lights. The south is fun to play with meds or heavies with gundepression. City is a good place to fight for Steve and his friends. And yes, there are obvious TD spots for the typical braindead basecampers, where they can wait for a flank to collapse, hit two shots and get destroyed.

Oh, it's a good map indeed. But tactics used on it variates so much, you never know what the enemy team will do. Both teams going bridge on a dual lemming train don't even happen often. But one team will at least ignore town more so than not to push around. But at the same time, one team camps the TD areas in meds or HTs fairly often too.

It falls under the same category that most removed maps did for me. Great map, but played badly more so than not. Hidden Village was one of those for me. I loved the map, but hated how some teams played it, that I did not miss it much when it was removed.

Yes, in this case the north played the map badly, but it's doesn't automatically mean that your team didn't play it well. In this case the north team won the city but did nothing with it. They also didn't play the south properly and just half-arsed it and then fell back to a position and allowed themselves to be in a crossfire. The T49 in your team did the completely right thing and did the most to win the game.

The north side tends to get to the dip first, partly because of the terrain and partly because south team tends to take the worst route possible through the water. With different tanks you can get through the water faster if you cross it more to the north and climb up the hill over the railroads, or you can also just go to the bridge and over it.

In the dip in itself, south teams has slight advantage as they can go wide towards the 0 line and create crossfire. North can do it too if they have the dip but not to the same extent to create a crossfire closer to the enemies. Both teams also can do what the T49 did, at some point push under the enemy ridge line and spot them. I'd say the map is a balanced one and player choices give the illusion that south team wins more. It's not the same but it kinda is like the Cliff one, one team just refuses to take some positions and by choice gets themselves into a bad position. It's been thought a long time that south is the winning side and at this point it's a self fulfilling prophecy because when people spawn in the north, they don't really bother to play the game.

Main mistakes from north I see is too many people camping the ridges and bushes near base, and too many pushing to the city and eventually not doing anything after winning it. LTs also tend to suicide scout too much. At the mid game, if north has won the dip, the main mistake I see is people just poking the ridge and playing stupidly, gifting their HP to anyone from south who is sniping from the back of the south flank. I rarely see any real effort put into that fight and even with an advantage in numbers, north team tends to just stagnate the fight and remain in the dip. South doesn't even have good defensive positions, only at the very front or at the back. Otherwise they have to overpeek a ridge to shoot, and they are pretty much constantly open to arty fire.

And just to mention the city flank. It still is a place that can turn out to be useful. The common understanding is just like with the valley on Lakeville or beach on Overlord, that only bad players go there. This means that bad players indeed tend to go there and that there isn't really that much tanks going there. A decent player can win even an outnumbering enemy there. Both teams can push under the ridge lines towards the enemy bases to spot and clear the campers. This is useful if the south flank has stagnated. Once a team pushes and clears the base, it's extremely hard for any team to come back to it, even if they have won the south flank.

It's a tricky one as you never know how many tanks the enemy will send south. Rushing into the dip can be a winning move or suizide when you become outnumbered as then there isn't really a way to get out alive.

That's why more often than not the north team stops before the dip next to the bridge, which allows the south team to farm them as they then have better positions (assuming they have some hulldown tanks) and can get support from TDs back at the western bridge.

From north spawn, when you see that you don't have much support going south it's usually more effective to just turn around and camp in base so you can get shots once the enemy crosses the ridge. But most people don't realise that.

It's a tricky one as you never know how many tanks the enemy will send south. Rushing into the dip can be a winning move or suizide when you become outnumbered as then there isn't really a way to get out alive.

That's why more often than not the north team stops before the dip next to the bridge, which allows the south team to farm them as they then have better positions (assuming they have some hulldown tanks) and can get support from TDs back at the western bridge.

From north spawn, when you see that you don't have much support going south it's usually more effective to just turn around and camp in base so you can get shots once the enemy crosses the ridge. But most people don't realise that.

fair points but TBH much of what you say is true on any map, you never know how many tanks will be sent to any flank, I guess the difference is on other maps you can get out alive !!!

this brings me back to a point I keep making, yolo gameplay is bad gameplay, for example artic region you need to yolo j9 and your team camps and you die, fjords you have to yolo the dip from west and hope you have enough support to win or the east gets the dip and a huge map advantage

I wonder if either extending the city along towards e1 might be viable as it would make the city attack from the north more viable instead of crossing an open kill zone

fair points but TBH much of what you say is true on any map, you never know how many tanks will be sent to any flank, I guess the difference is on other maps you can get out alive !!!

It's a bit more than that. On most other maps you usually spot the advancing enemies before you have to completely commit to a position (e.g. hill on Mines, K0 area on Westfield) and/or it's easier to realize wether your teammates will support you and easier to predict which enemies will go there (due to spawns and mobility). Key problem with the position on Liveoaks is that people think that the high ground is a good hulldown position and that they can hold it easily. While actually (assuming the other team also has good hulldown tanks) they have the lower ground and get farmed left and right.

So_So_English, on 10 March 2020 - 09:01 PM, said:

I wonder if either extending the city along towards e1 might be viable as it would make the city attack from the north more viable instead of crossing an open kill zone

or removing some of the city area in A3/4/5 might stop the camping?

I don't think changing the city will have much of an effect. The south team still has strong defensive positions in the arty dip, near the buildings and at the redline which means pushing towards the cap is extremely dangerous. I'd rather replace the train at the eastern bridge with some bushes so the nothern team can actually use that ridgeline, force the south team to the low ground and make it more difficult to push into the dip from multiple angles.

City is largely useless from both sides, relatively easy to defend from pushes out of city because they have so much open ground to cross.

9 line favours the south team because they can get a good cross fire position from the 0 line if north team actually contests the 9 line as usually they get in the first dip and get into a cross fire, which is why you often see north teams not bother with that flank and just camp, especially as they have the stronger base camping spots against a push from the railway side, the bush at B0 is massive levels of broken for a position so close to base.

North team has to get into H8/J8 under the bridge to have a decent chance of winning the 9 line battle, but that means people have to commit en masse and more often than not this doesn't happen, so most players are wary of doing it, as a lone tank down there will be yoloed.

City is largely useless from both sides, relatively easy to defend from pushes out of city because they have so much open ground to cross.

9 line favours the south team because they can get a good cross fire position from the 0 line if north team actually contests the 9 line as usually they get in the first dip and get into a cross fire, which is why you often see north teams not bother with that flank and just camp, especially as they have the stronger base camping spots against a push from the railway side, the bush at B0 is massive levels of broken for a position so close to base.

North team has to get into H8/J8 under the bridge to have a decent chance of winning the 9 line battle, but that means people have to commit en masse and more often than not this doesn't happen, so most players are wary of doing it, as a lone tank down there will be yoloed.

Also when South spawn gains control of the dip and starts progressing it's nearly impossible for North spawn tanks retreat since there is no cover and you will just be farmed when escaping. If you stay and fight you fight tanks in hull down position which can advance to next hull down position even closer to you quite easily and also you are in the cross fire when South spawn tanks are pushing both next from the train tracks and from the side. Your only option to retreat is trying to cross the tracks to the other side, but if you are in heavy or sluggish medium you either die or lose most of your hitpoints in the process.

South spawn can more easily retreat if they see that North is taking the dip with larger force and they have better positions (lower ground which can be used as hull down position before committing into the dip. North side doesn't have that luxury but they have to just blindly commit and then again there is the advantage from South spawn to create crossfire from next to the tracks and using the lower ground on the side.

Also when South spawn gains control of the dip and starts progressing it's nearly impossible for North spawn tanks retreat since there is no cover and you will just be farmed when escaping. If you stay and fight you fight tanks in hull down position which can advance to next hull down position even closer to you quite easily and also you are in the cross fire when South spawn tanks are pushing both next from the train tracks and from the side. Your only option to retreat is trying to cross the tracks to the other side, but if you are in heavy or sluggish medium you either die or lose most of your hitpoints in the process.

South spawn can more easily retreat if they see that North is taking the dip with larger force and they have better positions (lower ground which can be used as hull down position before committing into the dip. North side doesn't have that luxury but they have to just blindly commit and then again there is the advantage from South spawn to create crossfire from next to the tracks and using the lower ground on the side.

Yeh good point, if you commit to the 9 line and don't get under the bridge, you are stuck and will probably die. Which is why I think a lot times people on the north side just don't bother with the 9 line flank. I think generally the map tends to favour the south team, they have the 9 line advantage, can fall back more easily from the 9 line and can defend easier from a city push as well.

The best position North has really on that map is those base camping bushes.

When I play super heavy or slow TD with armor I pray that I spawn north (as my game can be basically over before I reach the city). When I play sth mobile with nice turret armor I pray that I spawn south.

It's a tricky one as you never know how many tanks the enemy will send south. Rushing into the dip can be a winning move or suizide when you become outnumbered as then there isn't really a way to get out alive.

That's why more often than not the north team stops before the dip next to the bridge, which allows the south team to farm them as they then have better positions (assuming they have some hulldown tanks) and can get support from TDs back at the western bridge.

From north spawn, when you see that you don't have much support going south it's usually more effective to just turn around and camp in base so you can get shots once the enemy crosses the ridge. But most people don't realise that.

It is indeed a tricky one, as it go any which way. It is also IMHO one if not the best map in rotation because it is not one of those crappy corridor maps, folks.

Yeh good point, if you commit to the 9 line and don't get under the bridge, you are stuck and will probably die. Which is why I think a lot times people on the north side just don't bother with the 9 line flank. I think generally the map tends to favour the south team, they have the 9 line advantage, can fall back more easily from the 9 line and can defend easier from a city push as well.

The best position North has really on that map is those base camping bushes.

Not sure how it favors south when north can reach the dip first and for south to gain any advantage, in form of a crossfire for example, they would have to be in the dip. All north players have to do is take the dip if they go there in the first place. Anything else is just again giving away a position for free and allowing yourself to be circled to a bad position.

What comes to city, it's useful to win when you are going to push that side. If you have managed to stagnate the fight to 9 line, you can clear the base by going along the coastline under the ridges to spot the base defenders. This gives fairly free access to push the base. Not always advised but a possibility. If you don't hold city and you do this, you only rely on your own base campers to help you which may turn out badly. 9 line is the most preferred flank to go to though, and north team generally plays it badly which gives again an illusion of the map favoring south.

Not sure how it favors south when north can reach the dip first and for south to gain any advantage, in form of a crossfire for example, they would have to be in the dip. All north players have to do is take the dip if they go there in the first place. Anything else is just again giving away a position for free and allowing yourself to be circled to a bad position.

What comes to city, it's useful to win when you are going to push that side. If you have managed to stagnate the fight to 9 line, you can clear the base by going along the coastline under the ridges to spot the base defenders. This gives fairly free access to push the base. Not always advised but a possibility. If you don't hold city and you do this, you only rely on your own base campers to help you which may turn out badly. 9 line is the most preferred flank to go to though, and north team generally plays it badly which gives again an illusion of the map favoring south.

Who can get there first is pretty even from my experience, it entirely depends on the faster tanks and who has more of them, and who commits them, but even then the dip by under the bridge is not is not a good position for north, as mentioned above, south team can more easily retreat out of there and if they clear the bridge they have the clear advantage in the fight because of the cross fire they can create, the south clearly has the advantage on that flank.

it's not an 'illusion' it's just the reality of the map. If one team takes a position and doesn't gain much, but the other team taking the position gains a big advantage, then very logically that is not balanced, it would be like the hill on Mines not providing much to one team, but lots to the other, that then becomes obvious why north team doesn't commit to it, because it's a risk that gains them nothing, whereas for south its a risk that gains them a big advantage.

Much like the middle on Fjords, another map deciding position, west team can get there, but its just as risky but holds far less value.

Not a balanced map.

If you have a contested/fight for position like that, winning it should provide equal value to both teams, if it doesn't then the map is very clearly not balanced.

City is useless it's easy to defend base against city pushes, especially for south team because they have the hills, then the arty hole and can defend it from the train tracks, city is a noob trap.

Who can get there first is pretty irrelevant, as that dip is not a good position for north, as mentioned above, south team can more easily retreat out of there and if they clear the bridge they have the clear advantage in the fight because of the cross fire they can create, the south clearly has the advantage on that flank.

it's not an 'illusion' it's just the reality of the map.

Yeah south may get away easier but they have much harder time defending the side. if north takes the dip, it's near guaranteed that they win that side since south only has either the ridgeline right next to the dip (J7) or the one behind (K6) to shoot from. Someone can be at the very back but very easily spotted. Those are not good defensive positions since the tank at the rear ridge next to the bridge (K6) has to overpeek if it wants to shoot anything. They can't sit on top of the hill, they have to be on the lower ground. And what crossfire you mean? North is the only one side that can create crossfire when they take the dip. From the dip they can either climb up next to the railroad or go lower ground and around, and on top of that they can have someone on the extended bit of land on K0 to shoot at anyone that peaks the lower ground on south side (K6 and J7).

What comes to falling back from the flank for south, if they cross the water, they are easily spotted by anyone with a brain and completely open to any base campers from north. Actually wouldn't call that even easier to get away. North has to run away along the 0 line from that flank and when they do it, they will have base campers shooting anyone that follows. Many times I've survived that retreat easily because once the south team got spotted, people from B0 could shoot them.

If one team takes a position and doesn't gain much, but the other team taking the position gains a big advantage, then very logically that is not balanced, it would be like the hill on Mines not providing much to one team, but lots to the other, that then becomes obvious why north team doesn't commit to it, because it's a risk that gains them nothing, whereas for south its a risk that gains them a big advantage.

Much like the middle on Fjords, another map deciding position, west team can get there, but its just as risky but holds far less value.

Not a balanced map.

If you have a contested/fight for position like that, winning it should provide equal value to both teams, if it doesn't then the map is very clearly not balanced.

City is useless it's easy to defend base against city pushes, especially for south team because they have the hills, then the arty hole and can defend it from the train tracks, city is a noob trap.

For some reason you more than doubled your post with a later edit... So.

The map is balanced. The dip offers the same for both sides. If one side has an advantage, then it's north since they can reach it first with wider variety of tanks. It's simply as the title says, played badly, by north team. Rest of this I mentioned in that earlier post already.

What comes to the city again, I have one tip that negates your south sides defensive position: don't go in the open in front of that hill... (Same thing can be said to pretty much any defensive position you complain about) If you want to push from the city side towards the base, you do it through the lower ground along the water, under the ridgeline. That way you can also spot anyone still sitting at the little house. And for the arty dip, you just surround it from multiple directions. The arty dip in south base is only useful if north attacks from the rails and if you have people on the city side hill shooting at them. That can also be negated by going along the water. City is not the important flank but it's a valid option if you don't want to go through the 9-line flank or if that stagnates. The defensive positions in each base are not able to close up the map unlike you seem to think, there are still options and openings to move up through.

If some maps were to be how you think they are, offering one side a better advantage for holding a position, then it would make even more sense for the other team to contest it just to not allow the enemies to have it. Your whole mentality with many of these maps seems to be that ''oh this map is so unbalanced, I'm just going to let the enemies take the positions I think are advantageous and then blame the map, game and team for the loss''. I don't actually think you voluntarily lose on maps you spawn on, in your opinion, losing side. But for some reason you comment on the forums like you would lose voluntarily.

For Fjords, once again, the middle gives no real advantage. It's meaningless to hold it if the other team doesn't gift them to you once you hold the middle. Both teams also have the same opportunities from there since the opportunities simply are easier access through the map and opening of the NE flank. The team that holds the middle can use the NE flank to their advantage more. As I've stated and asked before, any advantage you think middle gives is simply just the enemies playing badly. The enemies just have to not play badly and it negates the middle position. You even went as far as guided people to go to middle from west and stay on the top instead of contesting the dip, and in a later post said that east has a position of strength over that exact position you guided people to go from west. And that was your argument for middle being advantageous. So if you understand that the position is bad, why would you guide anyone to go there?

For some reason you more than doubled your post with a later edit... So.

The map is balanced. The dip offers the same for both sides. If one side has an advantage, then it's north since they can reach it first with wider variety of tanks. It's simply as the title says, played badly, by north team. Rest of this I mentioned in that earlier post already.

What comes to the city again, I have one tip that negates your south sides defensive position: don't go in the open in front of that hill... (Same thing can be said to pretty much any defensive position you complain about) If you want to push from the city side towards the base, you do it through the lower ground along the water, under the ridgeline. That way you can also spot anyone still sitting at the little house. And for the arty dip, you just surround it from multiple directions. The arty dip in south base is only useful if north attacks from the rails and if you have people on the city side hill shooting at them. That can also be negated by going along the water. City is not the important flank but it's a valid option if you don't want to go through the 9-line flank or if that stagnates. The defensive positions in each base are not able to close up the map unlike you seem to think, there are still options and openings to move up through.

If some maps were to be how you think they are, offering one side a better advantage for holding a position, then it would make even more sense for the other team to contest it just to not allow the enemies to have it. Your whole mentality with many of these maps seems to be that ''oh this map is so unbalanced, I'm just going to let the enemies take the positions I think are advantageous and then blame the map, game and team for the loss''. I don't actually think you voluntarily lose on maps you spawn on, in your opinion, losing side. But for some reason you comment on the forums like you would lose voluntarily.

For Fjords, once again, the middle gives no real advantage. It's meaningless to hold it if the other team doesn't gift them to you once you hold the middle. Both teams also have the same opportunities from there since the opportunities simply are easier access through the map and opening of the NE flank. The team that holds the middle can use the NE flank to their advantage more. As I've stated and asked before, any advantage you think middle gives is simply just the enemies playing badly. The enemies just have to not play badly and it negates the middle position. You even went as far as guided people to go to middle from west and stay on the top instead of contesting the dip, and in a later post said that east has a position of strength over that exact position you guided people to go from west. And that was your argument for middle being advantageous. So if you understand that the position is bad, why would you guide anyone to go there?

Risk/reward.

I do sometimes wonder whether you actually play the game. I am not going to go over Fjords again, you are wrong, pretty much every good player going disagrees with you on that one as did everyone in the thread, maybe work out why. Until you produce multiple replays of you countering that middle from west, and winning the game, not relying on just a terrible enemy, you will remain wrong.

But you seem completely oblivious to how WOT players play the game, people are not going to make a risky move for a position that gives no reward, achieving parity is NOT a reward for risk, thus making it a pointless risk.

Which is observed by how people play that flank on Live Oaks. For a start, as I said there is zero guarantee north can reach it first, there are multiple factors that decide that like tank type, spawn location, route taken etc. most of the time two similar tanks are going to get there at a very similar time, barely a few seconds in it, enough to make it irrelevant in the outcome.

Secondly, it's a risk, you have to commit to it, you have to crest a ridge and can quite easily put yourself in a position where there is little support fire. (It's also more risky from north because they have to take that risk directly going over a ridge line that enables plenty of shots into them as they do it, whereas south team can go the low side and limit the LOS and shots into them)

IF you take that risk from north, all you are doing is denying a position to the enemy and reaching a point of stalemate where neither side has a real advantage. (and south team can retreat more easily from their side anyway so you can't 'stick' them there like south can trap people in the cross fire and they can't run away as easily).

Most WOT players are risk adverse, you need to dangle a big carrot a lot of the time to make them commit to risky plays, those carrots are things like the hill on mines, they are positions that will, if played competently, reward players with decent games pretty much just by taking the position.

For north team there is no carrot, there is no incentive so they won't bother. Whereas people from South know if they take that dip, they will more often than not win that flank because they gain such an advantage, they take the dip and pretty much anyone from north spawn who has progressed down the 9 line is stuck and as long as they don't play stupidly they will win the flank easily.

That is the carrot.

And if you play the game and observe players behaviour (which you clearly do not) you will see that most WOTs players know this, and players from the north side are more wary of committing to a riskier move than gains them nothing, but if they spawn south they are more likely to commit to a risky move because is has an actual reward.

Which then tends to make players from the north either not go to the 9 line at all or play defensively on it, which is actually the best play on that map because of the disadvantage they have and the strong base camping position comes into play.

It's basic psychology.

If you have a position on a map, that both teams are expected to compete for, and competing for it is a high risk move, then giving one team a high reward from winning it, and the other not, is very logical not balanced, and clearly makes the map not balanced.

By your argument, if they blocked up all the gaps on the north side of the hill on mines, so south had nowhere to shoot down from, but both teams could still equally contest the hill, it would be balanced, when that is crazy and you know full well it would mean north spawn would win more games on mines.